The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1887-12-01
GRADY ON PROHIBITION.
RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT
IN THE GATE CITY.
Some Words, Facts and Figures That
Go to Show that Prohibition has
Been Blessing to the People of At
ianta.

Go to Show that Prohibition has
Been Blessing to the People of At
lanta.
[ have told you i / getting evidence
of improvement or deterioration in
city that you must go to the working
classes. Especially is this true of At
lanta, because this is the third city in
the United States in the proportion of
workers to population. Lawrence,
Mass, leads with 81 per cent of her
population wage earners, Lowell fol-
lows with 49 per cent and Atlanta
and Fall River tie for third place
with AZ per cent.
Now here is class of people repre-
senting in the workers OF our number
forty seven per cent Of the entire pop
ulation Add the women and chill
dren who do not work, and we see this
class represents sixty-six or seventy
per cent of our population. If [ have
shown that this class is benefited in
an unspeakable manner by the un-
tried experiment Of prohibition is it
not our duty to continue this expert
ment that the greatest good may come
to the greatest number?
There is just one thing further.
What harm has it done? If it has
done harm, let US see what. They
said we were going to be ruined, that
bats and owls would fly in and out,
and the real estate men have the rent
ING Of nine out cf ten houses that are
rented. They testify without break
absolutely without a break, that they
have fewer houses on their lists than
they have ever had since they have
been III business. Two of them have
advertised in the last few days for one
hundred houses, and to-day Mr.. Tally
told me that he actually left his office
because he was bored by people who
wanted to get somewhere to live in
this town.
Mr.. Scott told me that he could put
tenants in five hundred houses in thir-
ty days from to- morrow.
In the last two years there have
been 6S7 citizens who have become
home-oWners, against 153 in the two
years previous. Owing no man and
owning no man as master, wearing the
collar Of no faction, free born Ameri-
can citizens, not quibbling about per-
sonal liberty, but standing with wife
and little ones, honest and independ-
ent, above penury and degradation.
GApplause.1
Mr.. Grady made every point tell,
and then paid to the women who are
engaged in the temperance work the
following exquisitely beautiful com
pliment:
4 doubt if our women-God bless
them all-can do their best work in
the public turmoil of this campaign.
| wish it was so we could take hold
Of it with such manliness that every
woman could go back home and rely
on her prayers and our efforts to carry
it through. Woman's best work is
gentleness. She should come as the
dew comes, not IN the garish sunshine
or the rushing storm, but when the
earth is wrapped in nights sober
hush, falling like soft distillation of
the stars above the sleeping flowers.
Tremendous applause.l Better work
there, but I honor her when she comes
to the front in an emergency like this,
bringing her SCARED heart and ten
der nature and shining eyes to our
aid"
In concluding his speech, Mr.. Gra-
dy said:
81 assume to keep no mans con-
science; l assume to judge for no
man; | do not assume that | am bet
ter than any man, but that I am
weaker, but [ say this TO you: have
boy as dear TO me as the ruddy drops
that gather about this heart. I find
my hopes already centering in his lit
tie body and l look to him tonight to
take to himself the work that, strive
as may, must fall unfinished at last
from my hands. Now, [ know they
say it is proper to educate a boy at
home; that if he is taught right at
home he will not go wrong. That is
a lie to begin with, but that don't
matter. [ have seen sons of some as
good people as ever lived turn out
badly. | accept my responsibility as
father. That boy may fall from the
A.Shb S'e'th eto tAlASS55o nov OAlSG. Ii He
does, / shall bear that sorrow with
such resignation as I may, but I tell
yot, if [ We're to vote to recall bar
roons to this city, when [ know that
it has prospered in their absence, and
that boy should fall through their
agency, l tell you-and this convic.
ton has come to me in the still watch
es of the night could not, wearing
the eFowning sorrow of his disgrace
and looking into the eyes of her whose
heart he had broken-I could not, if
| had voted to recall these bar rooms,
find answer for my conscience or sup
port for my remorse. [Applause I
don't know how any othersfather feels
but that is the way / feel, if God per-
mits me to utter the truth.
ssThe best reforms of this earth
come through waste and storm and
doubt and suspicion !; the sun itself
when it rises on each day wastes the
radiance of the moon and blots the
starlight from the skies, but only to
unlock the earth from the clasp Of
night and plant the stars anew in the
opening flowers. Behind that sun as
Gehind this movement we may be sure
there stands the Lord God Almighty,
master and maker of this universe,
from whose hand the spheres are roll
ed to their orbits, and whose voice
has been the harmony of this world